


A Teddy Bear With Fangs

by 3six12



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 06:28:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17441681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3six12/pseuds/3six12
Summary: Jim knew. Spock knew. The teddy bear would have to make an appearance at some point.





	A Teddy Bear With Fangs

            Jim knew Spock slept with a teddy bear well before Spock started sleeping in the same bed as Jim. He had found it once when he went to Spock’s quarters, picking up things he had requested when he found himself stuck in sickbay. He thought maybe Spock knew that he knew, for he gave him a rather odd look as he took his belongings, lingering a moment too long, searching a bit too much. But Spock was always searching and Jim wouldn’t ever say anything anyways.

            He wanted to say something though because as soon as they had finalized their marriage, said their “I do” and forevers, the bear disappeared. It was always put away somewhere those few nights Jim had spent in Spock’s quarters, however Jim was far too preoccupied to be looking for a lost teddy bear. He had assumed that there would be a formal introduction when they formally moved in together.

            That wasn’t the case at all and Jim didn’t know how to bring it up. The best plan he had at present was to wait until he could find said missing teddy bear and causally act as if he had always known, as if the bear had always been nestled between the two pillows. But Spock kept it hidden well and Jim, his years of finding Hanukkah presents aside, was unable to find the damn bear.

            Jim figured at some point Spock would be compelled to dig the bear out and sleep with it again. It was a comfort item, that much Jim knew for sure. He was saddened to think that maybe it had been given to him by his mother, a sentimental item made all the more sentimental by her passing. That, alone, made Jim want to bring up the topic. If Spock needed the bear for comfort, Jim didn’t want to be the one thing standing in his way.

            The closed off nature of his new husband any time his late mother was brought up made Jim not want to ever mention it. He thought briefly of asking Sarek but then thought better of it. If Sarek himself didn’t know then Jim would be betraying a confidence he didn’t know he was supposed to be keeping. Because he wasn’t supposed to know about the damned bear.

            That was, until the night that Spock, so badly burned that even a heavy application of the dermal regenerator left him covered in partial thickness, second degree burns over 80 percent of his body, lay shaking in a private Medbay bed, silent tears rolling down his cheeks.

            “Love,” Jim whispered, Spock’s unburned hand held gingerly between his. “I’m so sorry. Had I only known.”

            “Don’t.” Spock rasped. He coughed a moment later, the movement bringing more tears to his eyes, a silent scream from his lips. He had been unable to slip into a healing trance and McCoy was medically unwilling to knock him out.

            “Love, I,” Jim paused. If telling Spock that he knew about the bear, that he would get it for him if he only knew where it was, would bring him any comfort it would be worth it. But if it didn’t, if it only brought shame to deal with on top of the pain, Jim would begin crying himself.

            “It is in my old quarters.” Spock mumbled. Jim must have been bleeding through the link again, he realized. Spock’s hand was still held so gently between his own. “In the back of my closet, in a box under my ready bag.”

            “I never thought to look there.” Spock raised an eyebrow. Jim let out a lifeless, almost painful chuckle. “I’ll be right back.”

            Jim kissed Spock lightly then raced from sickbay, passing a very confused Bones as he did so. He sped down the hallway, almost tripping at a corner, rounding said corner and coming up short at Spock’s door. The authorization request recognized him and opened without pause.

            On the bedside table sat a picture of a much younger Spock, two other children Jim did not recognize and Spock’s parents. Sarek was standing, stone faced, with his hand on the shoulder of a woman whose smile brought light to the room. Grabbing the picture, Jim went to the closet, surprised to find the bear so very easily. The more he looked at it, the more he realized the bear wasn’t really a bear. More like a saber-toothed cat.

            Tearing back down the hall, Jim once more passed Bones on his way to Spock’s side.

            “I found this too,” he said, lifting the picture. “We should put it in our room, ya think?”

            He tucked the bear in tight to Spock’s side, lifting his arm gently to wrap a hand around the soft fur. Spock seemed to take immediate comfort, sighing heavily, his shaking diminishing.

            “It is the only picture I have of her.” Spock mumbled.

            Jim pulled a chair beside him, sitting and leaning on the bed, as close to Spock as he dared. “Your dad doesn’t have any?”

            “Only a copy of this one. All others were destroyed with the destruction of Vulcan.”

            Spock was in such a heavy mental state, compromised by the medication that Bones had given him, by the pain he was still feeling. Each emotion led to the next and Jim could tell he was easily becoming overwhelmed.

            “We don’t have to talk about this.”

            “I loved her so much and she never knew.” A sob broke from his throat, fat tears welling up and refusing to fall.

            “No, love. No, she knew. She knew that her baby boy loved her.” Jim brought Spock’s hand to his lips, kissing the knuckles gently. We wanted so badly to wrap the man in his arms, to carry him back to their quarters, to lay him in bed and hold him there. “If you showed her half the love you show me, then she for sure knew.”

            “What if I did not? I was not the same person, Jim.”

            “Love, you’ve always been the same person. Your mother knew, she did. She knew how much you loved her, just like I do. She knows now. You told me once that some of her katra is still in you, still in the bond. She knows.”

            This brought new tears, a stream down his cheeks, hot and cutting a path down to his ears. He shivered when the wetness reached his ear canal, uncomfortable and with no way to prevent it. Grabbing a tissue, Jim first rid his ears of the burning liquid, then dried his face.

            So few times had he witnessed Spock cry. He assumed it was the next best thing to meditation. The first time, the first few times he had ever watched Spock cry – had been speechless and helpless in the face of the man’s pain – he had worried that Spock was broken. Worried that he would crumble and fall and be swallowed whole by his emotions, by his pain.

            Vulcans felt emotions more enormously than humans did and Jim thought humans were emotional enough for the whole universe. He couldn’t imagine the pain that Spock was in. And in that way he was so helpless and so at a loss, so opposite the Captain he was supposed to be.

            So he just sat there, silent as Spock cried, holding his hand and watching as his other hand worked the fur of the bear, rubbing over an ear or along a fang.

            “My father presented my mother with this while she was still pregnant with me. She had said that on earth, such things as ‘baby showers’ were held, in which attending parties brought gifts that would benefit the new mother and child. My father, assuming my mother wished for the touch of home, had Michael and Sybok join him in presenting her with gifts. Apparently, some of my fathers more inclined coworkers did as well.”

            “It looks like a saber-toothed cat.”

            Spock chuckled, another emotion Jim hardly saw in their normal, day to day life. “It is a sehlat. A replica of one. They are predators on Vulcan that were partially domesticated before the dawn of Surak and are – or rather were – kept as pets. They are thought extinct.”

            “Damned cool pet. I’d have loved to have one.”

            “We did. Her name was I’ Chaya. She was my fathers and took a liking to me. She followed me everywhere.”

            Spock was wistful, if his short, fractured sentence were anything to go on. He was lost in the past, remembering things he had yet to share with his new husband. His thumb continued to stroke the stuffed sehlat in a repetitive, calming motion. Jim wondered if Spock had ever sat as a young boy on the floor with I’ Chaya at his side, stroking through her fur; just as lost as he is now.

            Thinking of Spock as a lost boy wasn’t doing much for Jim’s mood. He couldn’t have been there for the young child, to deflect the bullies and the uncertainty, despite his overwhelming want to. The timeless adage stood that the past made the present and without the hardships his perfect husband wouldn’t be before him now.

            “Lay with me.”

            “Spock, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Aside from Bones wrath, I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

            Spock said nothing, didn’t so much as sigh, but Jim could tell he was saddened all the same. His lids, already naturally heavy, drew even further over his eyes, making him look as tired as his body must have felt.

            Jim was hopeless in the face of his husband, bound to his biding by the immense love he felt for the man. Slowly, so as not to jostle him, Jim slid into the bed. He didn’t dare press his body flush against Spock’s injured frame so instead settled for a hand on his, running with him through the fur of the sehlat.

            “On Earth, we call things like this teddy bears, even if they aren’t modeled after a bear. I had one, a rabbit, that’s still in my room somewhere at the old farmhouse. I slept with it when I was kid and took it everywhere. Even when I got older it still lay on my bed as I slept.” Jim paused. Looking Spock in the eyes, he leaned forward, delighted when their lips met in a chaste kiss. “I was kinda ashamed of it, ashamed of having a stuffed rabbit that I slept with, that had a name – Babbit, which is lame but I was like, two – but that thing helped me out more than I would’ve liked to admit. Through my darkest hours.”

            “Tarsus?”

            Jim pulled away, askance, and looked at Spock with a mortified ghost covering his face. “How do you know?”

            “I had always suspected some childhood trauma. You display, although only minutely and only detectable to those who know you intimately, some of the after affects. When our minds linked, I knew for sure. I had warned you.” Spock’s tone was gentle, his voice just above a whisper, his eyes soft and pleading for forgiveness.

            “Yeah, that makes sense.” Jim ran a hand through his hair, over his face, blowing out a forceful puff of air. “I really don’t want to talk about it. Not now.”

            “I understand. The rabbit, Babbit, it was there?”

            “Yeah. It saved my life.”

            “Then I owe it thanks.”

            Jim’s ghost was replaced by a smile, bright and alert, familiar to Spock.

            Over the next five days, Spock lay subject to the pain of his body, to the ministrations of Dr. McCoy and his staff. He lay there as Jim cuddled with him, in the limited capacity that they had; he lay there as they each shed their tears. He lay there and took comfort from the sehlat.

            “Does it have a name?” Jim asked one night, Spock close to sleep and Jim perhaps taking advantage of that.

            “Pluto. When I was a child, I wished to journey to Pluto. It was once Earths farthest distance imaginable, so present in the classic stories my mother would read me. I wished to go to Pluto.”

            “Pluto. That’s a great name.”

            One night, after Spock had drifted to sleep, Pluto held close, Jim attempted a long distance communication to the developing colony of New Vulcan. He was mildly surprised when the subject of his attention answered so quickly.

            “Sarek.”

            “Spock is well?”

            “Uh, yeah. He’s healing fine, sir.”

            “I have relayed to you son, have I not that such formality is no longer required outside of diplomatic occurrences.”

            “Sa-mehk. Listen, I was wondering if you had any other pictures of Amanda? Or know of anyone that does?”

            Sarek sat pensive. Nodding his head, Jim could see his jaw working. “There are two others who may have other pictures of her. But I have not spoken to them in some time.”

            “Please. It’s for Spock.”

            Thus Jim found himself searching down siblings that he didn’t know Spock had, asking after any pictures. He was given a total of twenty, some repeats, a number far greater than he would have imagined a sentimental Vulcan owning. Most came from the bearded, exceptionally emotional Sybok, who asked after his brother and cried both happy and sad tears as Jim regaled him with various stories.

            In each, Amanda was both different and very much the same. Her smile never faltered, especially where her children were concerned. She looked at Spock as any mother would look at their child. She loved him and these photos would go miles to helping Spock to see that.

            Jim’s endeavor was a secret and he enlisted no one in the process of replicating picture frames and deciding where to put them in their joint room. During the excursion, Spock seemed none the wiser. Perhaps too sedated or perhaps Jim was getting better at keeping the bond to himself.

            When Spock finally returned to his quarters, after five days of having the dermal regenerator used on him twice daily over the full expanse of his body, the changes to their shared space left Spock momentarily stunned. All throughout the space were photos of his family he never assumed he would see again: of all of them, of them doing daily things, of them showing affection Spock had somehow missed seeing as a child. On the dresser was the photo of his mother with him as a newborn, taken shortly after his birth, a photo he had never seen before. Beside it was a photo of he and Jim, a candid one taken just after they had sealed their vows with a kiss. Their foreheads were pressed together, hands gingerly cupping the others face. Spock had missed that emotion as well. And there, on the bed, was the bear, nestled between the pillows. Waiting. It was home.


End file.
